Went to drive the car today after putting in a lighter spring and it flooded again. I had my dad with me and he saw that fuel was shooting out of the front bowl vent tube. That must have been where the fuel was coming from the other day when it was happening when I couldn't figure out what was going on. I guess there is some varnish or debris blocking the needle and it's overflowing the bowl? Looks like I just need to rebuild the darn thing, which is probably what I should have done in the first place! Edit: Advance Auto down the street had the kit, thus I will trudge into the unknown alone and unafraid with rebuild guide in hand and v8buick.com a few steps away :Comp:
maybe the float is sticking. if the needle and seat is clogged you can just run the bowl dry and then crank it or turn on the fuel pump and it should come out.
The carb definitely needed to be rebuilt in my novice opinion. It was really really grungy all over and inside. The needles had a little gunk on them so it was probably sticking. Who knows when the last time this thing was rebuilt. The gaskets were in pretty bad shape and were very wet and soggy (all paper type no resuable). The power valve had 2 for the year stamp.... I bet that was 1992 lol.
If I were you I would pull it off and rebuild it. Carbs can be a PITA to rebuild so if you don't think you want to tackle it just box it up and send it to doc, he said he could rebuild it for you. I think that is your best bet, pull it and send it to doc or find someone local that is good at rebuilding Holleys. Good luck with that though in this age of computer controlled cars. Theres not that many left that know how to work on carbs. This is also the age of pull it off and replace it. I remember when I use't to rebuild starters, master cyl's, brake cyl's, brake calipers, altenators, ext.. Not anymore now you put a rebuilt this or that on. OK I'm dating myself ou:
AH, OK, I should have figured that by you saying that the gaskets were junk and the rubber stuff was junk ou: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: Good luck, I hope it comes out good for ya. :TU:
Oi the more I dig the more I find! I have the carb back together, but then found that the plastic/phenolic spacer that was on there is chipped around the edges and it kind of de-laminating! :rant:It was the 4-hole 1/2 inch type. It didn't have a brand or anything on it, just a number that I googled and couldn't find any info on. I guess I will replace it with a 4-hole Holley part. In other news, I was sorting through some of the wiring birds nests the previous owner left me and found that they wired the HEI up using the resistor wire :spank: Lots of little projects piling up :Brow:
IT'S ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!!!! Cranked right up, and sounded good too. No leaks so far. Tomorrow I will fine tune the float level and hook up the vacuum gauge so I can fine tune the idle. I ended up going with a Canton 4-hole phenolic spacer and a TA 1246 adapter plate to replace the plastic spacer that was on there. I ran a new 12 gauge wire for the HEI distributor, threw away the crappy universal kick down the last guy installed, hooked up the correct kick down, and cleaned up a bunch of other wiring bird nests. I was going crazy because I couldn't figure out why the heck my car didn't come pre-wired for the th400 kick down... but I could see a black/white wire in the harness under the dash and it traced up to the steering column. The I finally figured out that some idiot plugged the kick down harness into the backup lights plug on the back of the steer column. What the heck? The pink and green backup lights harness was just dangling nearby. Ugh. That guy had to have been color blind.
Woo! She's pullin' 18 on the vacuum gauge warmed up at idle. I had to adjust the idle mixture about a 1/4 turn from where it was when it took the carb apart. It runs MUCH better now. Remember the hesitation problem I was having at the beginning of this thread? Yeah, it's gone. Completely. From a dead stop it spins the tires without a hiccup. From 45 mph, if you hammer it, it immediately accelerates. Now, there is still one issue that is drivin me nuts. The vacuum secondaries are still NOT opening at all (according to the paper clip test)! When I rebuilt the carb I checked the vacuum passages that run to the primary and secondary throttle bodies, and they are clear. When the housing was off the carb I could compress the diaphragm and plug the hole with my finger and it would hold position. No leak there... the check ball is in it's respective place and the cork gasket is there in between the vac housing and carb body. The secondary shaft moves by hand fine, it is not stuck. I have the purple spring in there now. Shouldn't a 455 be able to move the purple spring? Should I just go lighter and lighter? I am running out of ideas...
